Moving On: The URR and proposal defense

Once your committee has approved your proposal (Chapters 1-3), each of your committee members completes a rubric. Your chair will submit your proposal to turnitin and assuming it is acceptable, the proposal, rubrics, and turnitin report will all be sent to your University Research Reviewer (URR). The URR is a faculty member that is assigned by the research center, this person provides an independent review of the paper and double checks that all is well. Why this step? The problem is that your committee is primarily looking at specific aspects of your paper, the content expert is concentrating on the literature. The methods expert is concentrating on the research methods. Unfortunately, they are focused on the trees, and need someone else to see the forest. Does everything hang together? Are the individual parts consistent? You will probably need to make some additional revisions for the URR. 

Once the URR approves your paper, he or she will complete a rubric and submit it to the research center. You will then receive an email indicating that you may schedule your one-hour proposal defense conference call. You will need to select several possible days and times that will work for you and send those to your committee with your time zone (check with your chair first, he or she may like to follow a different procedure). Once there are a couple of times that work for everyone, your chair will submit a conference call request form to the research center. You will be notified of the time selected and how to call in. 

In advance of the call you will want to prepare a power point for your committee. You will be given 20 minutes to talk about your project, so keep the slides to less than 25. It is better to have just an outline on the slides, you can always write out everything you want to say and read it during your presentation. Concentrate on the methods and analyses with just enough literature to put it into context. Check with your chair how they like it done. Send your committee the power point prior to the defense call. 

On the day of the defense, have your computer on with your paper open for reference. Have any other papers available that you might need, as well as your power point. It is also a good idea to have some water available and make sure you have an environment where you won’t be distracted or disturbed. Once you call in, your committee will greet you and try to put you at ease. Your chair will leave the conference briefly to turn on the recorder, there will be announcement when it starts. Your chair will probably indicate the date and who is on the call for the recorder and then it will be your turn to go through the presentation. 

A few things to know, first this is not a confrontational situation. I know it is called a defense, but it is really just a chance for the committee to hear about the project one more time and catch anything that may have been missed. It is typically very collegial, with everyone trying to make it the best project possible. After your 20 minute talk, your committee will ask you questions. They are just trying to clarify any issues that might arise during the data collection. It is okay to say that you don’t know something (but say that you will check it out, find the answer, and report back). 

Take a few moments at this stage of the process to reflect on your progress, celebrate! 

After the call, your chair will submit a form to the research center indicating that you passed the defense. You will then receive a notice that your next step is the IRB (Institutional Review Board) this is the ethics review and takes place before you collect any data. We’ll take a look at the IRB process next time.